


the taste of galbitang

by lingeringdust



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Depression, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, Mental Health Issues, Synesthesia, lapslock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-13 01:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5689984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lingeringdust/pseuds/lingeringdust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the bad days roll into the next, over and over and over again, never ending. they seem to grip tight at yunho's throat, suffocating him, and forcing him to remember how to breathe again.</p>
<p>yunho eats and tastes loneliness and helplessness.</p>
<p>inspired by Aimee Bender's "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"</p>
            </blockquote>





	the taste of galbitang

it starts very suddenly, on a good day.

“what’s wrong?”

jaejoong turns to look at him, face full of concern, eyes wide. in one hand, he holds a spatula and in the other, an empty greasy pan where he had been previously cooking pancakes. kiss me, i’m the chef, written in curly english letters adorns the apron he’s wearing.

yunho looks down at the pieces of pancake he had just spat out. then back up to jaejoong.

“nothing,” he says, and takes another bite.

another bite tasting of sadness and of loneliness and the heavy weight of depression pressing down against his lungs, making it difficult to breathe, to think even.

he pauses again.

“jaejoong,” he says, after a moment. the taste of sadness lingers on his tongue, gripping tight at his throat. “are you okay?”

jaejoong smiles.

“of course,” he says, grinning. “why wouldn’t i be?”

 

*

 

yunho crosses his fingers, hopes that it’s just a 24 hour or week-long flu -- but it doesn’t stop.

all of the food jaejoong cooks now tastes -- different. some days, the kimchi chigae is warm and frothy with the right kick of spice, spilling into a glee that even yunho couldn’t help but let out a laugh after a bite. other days, jaejoong’s sadness sinks in between the grains of rice, weighing down the light morsels so that every bite was like puncturing another hole in his heart.

week two passes the same way week one does -- full of good days and bad days. the good days when he and jaejoong would go out, watch a movie, eat dinner together, cuddle afterwards, or have sex. when they would stay in, watch a movie, eat together, cuddle afterwards, or have sex.

the bad days when he and jaejoong would go out, feeling tired and exhausted and thinking more about when they could be alone than with each other, with each other and together but alone, and then maybe get into fights. angry fights that left broken lamps on the floor, the taste of anger and sadness sinking into yunho’s tongue.

yunho wonders if jaejoong could taste it.

and then he wonders if he could taste his own cooking.

he doesn’t cook much, mostly because he can’t cook all that well especially since he tended to burn things. but one morning, when jaejoong is still asleep, he tries for a simple dish, steamed rice and some scrambled eggs. he seasons them both very carefully and sets aside a plate for jaejoong while he settles into his breakfast.

one bite and he spits it out.

it’s not the seasonings, it’s not the way he cooks them.

it’s the way that depression had somehow found its way from his heart to his mouth, the way bile rises to his throat, the way his stomach rolls with nausea. it’s the way sadness slithers through his body, slides into his bones, pokes and prods him. reminds him that there is no happy. leaves him with hopelessness and helplessness.

they’re both unhappy, yunho realizes. and he wonders when it started.

footsteps startle him out of his thoughts, followed by a sleepy yawn. jaejoong stumbles into the kitchen, a pair of slippers sliding under his feet, and a pair of boxers hanging low on his hip.

“you made breakfast?” he says, catching sight of the plates.

yunho grabs the plate of eggs and slides it over to jaejoong, trying hard to smile.

“thought i could return the favor for once,” he says.

jaejoong smiles and takes the plate. but he does not lean forward to steal a kiss from yunho’s lips, does not let his hands fall -- slide down yunho’s arm or back, or anywhere near yunho. and this is the first time yunho’s realized this.

he eyes jaejoong carefully, watches his boyfriend take a bite of the breakfast, watches for any sign of disgust at the taste. wonders if jaejoong would taste the sadness.

“not bad,” jaejoong says, after a moment. “it’s pretty good.”

nothing, yunho thinks and smiles. he doesn’t taste it.

 

*

 

it’s just jaejoong’s food.

sometimes, after work, yunho stops by the food stand around the corner near their apartment. it’s during those moments when he can actually savor the taste of dokkbokki, without the addition of frustration or glee or sadness or the overbearing loneliness seeping into its spicy flavors. he drops by so often that the food stand guy knows exactly what yunho wants whenever he gets there, every single time.

other times, he sneaks into bakeries. jaejoong cooks for him too much, cooks breakfast, lunch, and dinner. gifts them to people and obviously to him. and even makes him take it with him to work.

so during his lunch hour, he sneaks into bakeries, devours their sweet samples and buys half a dozen more -- all gone by the time he arrives at the food stand for dokkbokki.

and when he arrives home, he tries to stomach the silent screams, the desolate emptiness, and the remnants of a failing relationship on his plate. tries to stomach it all and smile when jaejoong turns and asks him how it was.

he can’t keep doing this. can’t keep dealing with the bad days that roll into each other, over and over and over again -- never ending.

 

*

 

“it’s not working out,” he says. the words sound cliche, overused. he winces.  
  
jaejoong stares, quiet, arms hanging uselessly next to him.   
  
yunho opens his mouth again, to say something to comfort him, anything to make it easier. but --  
  
“okay,” jaejoong says.  
  
yunho nods, turns around, tries not to think about how calm jaejoong had sounded.

 

*

 

yunho moves out.

 

*

 

he stays with junsu, junsu who’s been a friend since forever -- mutual even -- with jaejoong. but junsu gets it; he doesn’t ask why or how, doesn’t prod or poke his nose into yunho’s (and in relation, jaejoong’s) business. he just knows that when yunho is ready to talk, he’ll talk. all he asks of yunho is --

“--how long?”

junsu chews thoughtfully over the mouthful of jajangmyeon, lets the greasy takeout console him. a mark of a single bachelor.

from across him, yunho shrugs. he sullenly picks up his chopsticks and takes a pickled radish.

“until i find a place, i guess,” he says.

junsu swallows, eyes yunho, then takes another mouthful.

“take your time,” he says, “it’s nice to have a roommate again.”

junsu smiles, a contagious grin that spreads from junsu to the depths of yunho’s cold, dead heart.

 

*

 

every so often, he checks with junsu because junsu still talks to jaejoong and he’s not quite ready to be friends with jaejoong just yet.

“he’s fine,” junsu always says, “as fine as can be.”

the food no longer tastes of sadness, of the overbearing weight of guilt and loneliness, but yunho can feel it all the same whenever he closes his eyes and thinks of jaejoong -- and even sometimes when he cooks the rice. underneath all of the burnt rice that yunho makes, he can still taste the regret, the loss, and the hopelessness.

 

*

 

but yunho goes through the motions of living, as if he were reading out of a handbook written by a dead person. he wakes, takes care of himself -- just barely -- and goes to work, eats, comes home to junsu, and they eat together. and then junsu leaves for his work and yunho spends the night inside, watches TV (not really) until he falls asleep to angry tones in the drama.

rinse and repeat.

he’s not really living. he’s just kind of there and sometimes, when he lies in bed and closes his eyes, he wonders if jaejoong had moved on and if so -- how.

 

*

 

“look,” junsu says, after 2 months of moping. “it’s been a while -- maybe you need to start seeing other people.”

yunho doesn’t speak, sits quietly, and eats, lets the spicy flavors of dokbokki reach his tongue and warm his heart. truthfully, he doesn’t agree. he just needs time, just needs space, needs his own place to sulk and mope and adjust.

“i know someone i think you’ll hit it off with --”

yunho grunts.

“--and i’ve already told him about you so --”

“what?”

“so you can meet him at cafe latte at one tomorrow for a drink,” junsu says, smiling.

yunho stares. “you didn’t even ask me,” he says, frowning, unsure if he likes this idea.

junsu shrugs. “it’s just one date,” he says. “just give it a try.”

 

*

 

yunho arrives a little late and definitely does not “hit it off” with his blind date.

changmin, it seems, had been waiting for nearly an hour, having mistaken the time to be earlier. but of course, they only found this out after changmin had scathingly and passive aggressively mentioned how early he was and how long he had to wait -- to which yunho immediately apologized to.

“so what do you do?” changmin asks. he tosses a leg over the other, leans back, arms crossed. his hair looks flawless, like he had stepped out of a fashion magazine, and yunho appreciates how changmin looks.

“law firm as an accountant,” yunho says. “kind of boring -- you?”

“finishing up my last year of med school,” changmin says. “gonna specialize in pediatrics.”

yunho smiles. “you like kids?”

changmin scoffs and yunho’s smile falls. “those little rascals? no way --” he rambles on, but yunho’s no longer listening.

instead, his mind is elsewhere. it’s on the faraway dream of opening up an orphanage, of working with kids every day and every night, as much as possible. it’s on being unable to do it and unable to find -- something -- to do it.

“hey, yunho-ssi. you still there?”

yunho blinks at the hand waving in front of him, suddenly aware that he was still in a coffee shop.

“yeah,” he says, “sorry -- i spaced.”

changmin stares, leans forward as if to scrutinize very carefully at the older man, as if he were looking for something.

then, he relaxes.

“look, if you’re not interested, you can just say so and leave,” changmin says, sighing. “i’d rather you do that than waste my time.”

“no--it’s--” yunho blinks, remembers jaejoong, his smile, his food -- the lingering taste of sadness and loneliness eating away at his insides --

“i just got out of a breakup,” he says. “still getting over it”

changmin pauses, then reaches into his backpack for his phone, glances at it, and then lets it rest on the table.

“how about we do this again sometime else then? we obviously started on the wrong foot, so let’s start over.” he says, he stands. “i gotta get going, but --”

“yes,” yunho says, and slides out of his seat, stands so he’s eye to eye with changmin and wow -- changmin was tall, taller than even yunho. “next week -- same time, same place?”

changmin scoffs again. and yunho is quickly learning that this is how changmin is. “no way,” he says and holds out his hand. “give me your phone -- i’ll text you details later.” then he pauses, squints. “you can text, right?”

“a little.” he pulls out his phone, lets changmin take it out of his hands and slip it back to him a second later. his phone says there’s a new text from “CM”

“i gotta run,” changmin says again, “but we’ll work it out so we can meet again, okay?”

“okay.”

and changmin runs off. and for the first time in a long time, yunho feels something other than sadness, other than loneliness, other than helplessness.

 

*

 

changmin is… well, changmin is nice.

he comes off as cold and douchey at first, but the more yunho talks to him, the more he realizes that changmin does actually care -- in different ways. sometimes, changmin will say something that comes off as rude or awful, and sometimes, yunho lets that get to him and when changmin realizes this --

“shit, i’m sorry,” changmin says. “my jokes are awful and i don’t know when to shut up sometimes.”

“it’s okay,” yunho says and he finds that, yeah, actually, it’s okay.

their third date is a stay-at-home date, on a good day. changmin invites him over for dinner, completely enthusiastic to share his new cooking skills -- especially after learning that yunho didn’t really -- couldn’t really cook.

“come in,” changmin says, once the door is open. he smiles, eyes crinkling into a pair of mismatched smiles.

yunho steps into the apartment -- cautiously -- takes in the stylishly arranged furniture, the framed photographs of family and friends decorating the walls and bookshelves. and of course changmin -- changmin who's wearing a frilly pink apron and a pair of matching mittens.

the apartment smells good, too. like the spice of gojuchang and the familiar smell of sweet-salty-tangy galbitang.

“do you need any help?” yunho asks. he hands changmin the flowers and a bottle of wine he’d picked up, hoping that it was a good one.

changmin thanks him for the gifts, smiling brightly, and sets them aside.

“no, i’m good,” he says, waving yunho towards the couch. he turns on the television and tosses the remote to him. “have at it; dinner will be ready in a bit.”

and he disappears behind a wall, taking with him the pink apron and pink mittens.

when changmin calls yunho back in, the table’s already set and the food’s laid out. in front of each seat, there’s a bowl of white rice -- perfectly shaped into a dome. the utensils sit next to each other, next to the bowl of galbitang and a platter of bulgogi.

“i wasn’t sure --” changmin starts and yunho turns to him, surprised at the sudden declaration. “i only just started to learn to cook--”

“it looks amazing,” yunho says, and takes a seat.

they sit, across from each other, close enough to see each other’s eyes, to take in each other’s expressions and faces and spaces. yunho relaxes.

“try it,” changmin urges.

so yunho takes the spoon and scoops some of the galbitang into his mouth. the tangy taste of galbitang sinks into his tongue and he savors it, lets the sweet-saltiness warm him from the inside -- from his stomach to his fingers to his toes.

“it’s good,” yunho says. “it’s really good.”

changmin grins. “told you i could cook,” he cheers.

yunho laughs and keeps drinking the soup, eats the galbitang. the more he eats it, the more he savors it and the white rice, a new taste begins to linger in his mouth. at first, he can’t quite identify it, but the more he chews and the more he swallows -- he realizes.

it’s happiness. changmin’s happiness. created from the very core of changmin while he was cooking, seeping into every crevice and corners of the food he had created, enough so that yunho could taste it.

changmin was happy, yunho realizes.

he drops the spoon --

changmin was happy and yunho isn't quite sure what to do with that information.

“yunho?”

\--and he gets up. grabs his things--

he isn't quite sure how to handle it, how to handle someone else's happiness anymore because --

“yunho? what--”

how can he?

\--and he leaves.

“yunho!”

when he can't even find happiness for himself?

 

*

 

yunho watches as junsu tinkers with the controller, swinging it from side to side though it had no effect on the car on the screen, as though the swinging would help prevent junsu from accidentally running into a banana peel on the road and fall off the rainbow road.

junsu groans and then lets the controller slip from his hands. then, he turns to yunho.

“i thought it was going well?”

yunho stares at junsu.

“what?”

“you dating -- changmin -- i thought it was going well.”

yunho blinks, remembers leaving. remembers changmin’s face, how the last bits of galbitang had turned from happiness to confusion to bitterness and sorrow.

“oh.”

junsu spins to face yunho.

“what’s wrong? changmin told me you walked out on your last date. was it the food? did you not like the food? or were you two going too fast?”

“no,” yunho says, remembers the taste of happiness on his lips, remembers changmin’s smile and his mismatched eyes. already, he misses him. but --

junsu’s staring at him with wide eyes, a frown painted across his face.

“what’s wrong?”

yunho isn’t quite sure.

 

*

 

yunho ends up moving out. he finds a place not too far from his job; it’s in walking distance, lucky him. but it’s too close to the cafe where he had first met changmin and sometimes, when he walks by, he’s reminded of changmin and his smile and his eyes and -- the happiness yunho had felt through the food.

he takes his mind off changmin by decorating the place. buys a bunch of random useless junk to fill up the space; it’s mostly random artwork, some plants that will probably die before they blossom because yunho keeps forgetting to water them, and lots of books that he’ll never finish because he just can’t seem to find time or energy or enough motivation to finish. one. single. book.

he invites junsu and some friends over and in an attempt to get over jaejoong, he invites him and his new boyfriend, yoochun, over also.

it’s awkward.

“i heard you were dating someone,” jaejoong says, once he’s cornered yunho alone in the kitchen. “tall, dark, and handsome?”

he looks happier; there’s a glow to him that wasn’t there previously, a smile that stretched further, and even his eyes seemed to sparkle.

“unlike you,” yunho jokes.

“ouch.” but jaejoong laughs, nudges yunho. and yunho realizes it was much easier to be friends with jaejoong than to be boyfriends with him.

“so how are you?” yunho asks.

jaejoong shrugs. “better,” he says. “started seeing a therapist.”

yunho raises an eyebrow.

“yeah -- i know right? but yoochun mentioned that seeing a therapist really helped him get through his father’s death and then he recommended me this guy -- anyway, it’s been really helpful,” jaejoong says. he plays with the ends of his shirt when he says this.

yunho isn’t sure what to say.

“so who is this guy anyway?” jaejoong asks, changes the subject.

yunho sighs.

“no one anymore,” yunho says. “i fucked up.”

jaejoong cocks his head, eyes searching for yunho’s.

“maybe you did,” he says. “but maybe you can fix it. from the way you talked about this guy -- you sounded really...happy. and it sounds like he’s really into you, too.”

yunho frowns. “how do you know that?”

“i talk to junsu,” jaejoong says. “and junsu knows the guy.”

of course. gossip.

“anyway, cheers to the new,” jaejoong says and clicks a glass of wine against yunho’s knuckles.

 

*

 

it’s 2am.

yunho sighs, turns on his side, and watches the minutes turn from 2:00AM to 2:01AM. he counts in his head; it takes 60 seconds, as it should.

he turns on his other side. the moon beams through the blinds. he blinks and turns back to the clock, reaches for his phone.

without thinking, he dials a number, waits patiently for someone on the other side to pick up.

a groggy voice answers.

“what?”

junsu sounds irritated, as he should, for a random phone call at 2 in the morning on a weeknight.

“junsu,” yunho says. “how should i apologize?”

a silence and for a moment, yunho worries that junsu had hung up and he’d be left with wondering how to apologize and if he should get flowers or just chocolates or both -- or if it would be safer to just ignore this part of his life for the rest of his life and try to move on but then he’d probably end up thinking about changmin again and about his mismatched smiling eyes, his sardonic sense of humor, and his legs. his long legs.

“you’re talking about changmin?”

yunho’s heart leaps to his chest. junsu was awake and was coherent enough to help.

“yeah. how should i apologize? i walked out on him and -- i don’t have a good reason -- i just.”

junsu pauses.

“he loves food,” junsu says. “any food; bring any food and he’ll eat it.”

yunho nods -- too bad he can’t really cook all that well, but --

“okay, but yunho -- he doesn’t want to see you --”

yunho swallows. heart beating furiously. doesn’t want to see him -- that he can’t quite fault changmin for -- but he had half hoped that changmin would be forgiveful, would be willing to listen, would be --

“--but i have an idea. i’ll call you tomorrow morning.”

and they hang up.

junsu calls in the morning, as promised, chews yunho out for calling him at 2 in the morning (jokingly), and then informs him that he has a date at the same cafe at 1pm tomorrow. oh -- and please wear something nice and bring food. maybe some flowers, too.

“thanks, junsu.”

“don’t mess this one up, hyung.”

yunho doesn’t want to promise anything, so he just says:

“i’ll try.”

 

*

 

today feels like a good day, yunho thinks. he just knows it.

 

*

 

before yunho goes, he makes one more phone call.

“jaejoongie? can i get the name and number of that therapist?”

 

*

 

yunho gets there an hour early, sits in the same spot as last time, sets the boxes of (attempted) homemade food in front of him, and waits.

nearly an hour later, changmin arrives; the bell above the entrance rings, signaling his entrance. and yunho’s breath catches -- changmin hasn’t noticed yet him, too busy untangling the knots in his scarf and rearranging it to look more presentable -- not that he wasn’t already.

and then changmin looks up, scans the cafe, and catches sight of yunho. his eyes narrow and yunho can see him mutter something, then steels his shoulders and head towards yunho’s table.

“junsu told me it was another blind date,” changmin says.

“okay.”

“he didn’t tell me it was you.”

“okay.”

changmin sighs, then sits.

“you have five minutes.”

yunho opens his mouth to speak, to apologize, to say -- anything, but. he shuts his mouth; isn’t sure how to start.

changmin raises an eyebrow.

“or we can sit in silence for five minutes.”

“no --” yunho says. he gathers his thoughts; collects them in the palms of his hands, tries to hold them close enough to recite them very carefully, very slowly, gently.

“i’m sorry; i shouldn’t have run out like that. it was wrong of me and especially since i didn’t even call back -- or -- anything.”

changmin huffs, crosses his arms and legs.

“i’m -- i’m depressed,” yunho says. “i feel nothing a lot of the time and other times, i feel sad or hopeless and being there -- when i was --” he looks away from changmin, at a nearby couple having tea together, leaning in close. “when i was at your place, when i was eating --”

he takes a breath, turns to face changmin.

“i think, for that moment, i could feel happy like maybe there was some sort of hope, that maybe you would be happy with me and i could be happy with you and -- and that scared me,” yunho says. “i’m sorry; i guess i didn’t want to disappoint you because i can’t be happy all the time, i can’t be there all the time. if you’re dating me, this -- this is what you get.”

yunho stops, breathes. this is it, he thinks. this is it.

changmin stares.

“okay,” he says.

“okay?”

changmin scoffs. “if i’m dating you, then i’m dating all of you -- obviously,” he says. “i don’t know what else you expected.” he uncrosses his arms, lets them fall onto the table.

yunho blinks.

changmin sighs. “we seem to be really bad at this dating thing though so i think we need to practice more. how about we do the dinner date one again?”

yunho smiles.

 

*

 

and there are good days and there are bad days -- some days, the food tastes beautiful. changmin’s food is happy and warm, filled with glee and laughter and sometimes a hint of snarkiness within its spices. those days, yunho’s burnt rice tastes ecstatic underneath its staleness. and other days, his cooking is a pile of tears, a pile of nothing but dry nauseous heaves that reek of hopelessness and nothingness.

those days, changmin holds him close and they wait until those days are over.

**Author's Note:**

>  **notes:** if you ever feel like you need help, please seek it out:  
>  _depression_  
> [7 Cups](7cups.com/depression-help-online/)  
> [Depression Chat Room](http://www.depression-chat-rooms.org/)  
> [Beyond Blue](https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/get-immediate-support)  
>  _suicide ideation ___  
> [Crisis Hotline](dbsalliance.org/site/PageServer?pagename=urgent_crisis_hotline)  
> [Suicide Prevention Lifeline](suicidepreventionlifeline.org/gethelp/lifelinechat.aspx)  
> [Crisis Chat](crisischat.org/faq/)


End file.
